Windows 8 GUI Annoyances

The need for change?

Ever since Windows 98 came out I have been reading the nonsense that gets put on forums and blogs. “Why change it?” “I’ll never use that OS, this one is perfect.” “They’ll never top Windows XP.” I heard it in every OS change. 95 to 98, ME to XP, Vista to 7, and every upgrade in between. And with the exception of Vista, I tend to think they are nothing but ignorant fools who couldn’t evolve with the rest of the technological world. Now I have to join them and bash the coming OS.

If you have had the “pleasure” of checking out the consumer release of Windows 8, or the final preview release now that 8 has been shipped to manufacturers before distribution in October, you have experienced the glory of the Metro UI. Not that it’s being called that now. Now Windows is calling it Windows 8 Style UI. I wish I were kidding, but that’s their temporary name while they come up with something better than Metro. But while they wobble around in Limbo, we’ll still call it Metro for this article.

Windows 8 brings with it two big annoyances for me. One of them is that it goes straight to that awful Metro Start Screen. A GUI mostly intended for touch screen monitors and hosts apps that you buy from the Microsoft app store. You get that? It’s a touchscreen GUI that has apps on it you buy from their store. I just turned my desktop into an iPod. The worst part is that there’s no option in Windows to bypass the Metro Start Screen on start up.

When the consumer release came out some months back, some resourceful people out there did workarounds to enable us to load directly to the desktop. With the RTM release, that possibility is gone. Microsoft ripped out a bunch of code before sending W8 off for production to keep people from bypassing that moronic start screen. Sure, it’s fine to have a screen that is intended for touchscreen monitors that has apps for Microsoft stuff. But don’t force us to look at it first thing. It seems that Microsoft is dead set on shoving their GUI d**k down our throats. Why not just put a button somewhere to give us the option to see that crap?